#2stab2fest

THIS TAINTED LOVE YOU'VE GIVEN

As promised, here's the art post for my second @deancas-stabfest collab 😍 @lazarus-rose's prompt had me immediately hooked since it was music to my horror loving heart (with a spin on murder husbands I hadn't even considered yet) and takes the name "Stabfest" beautifully literal:

Summary: Everyone has their hobbies—Dean’s just happens to involve a lot more blood and screaming than most people’s. And sure, maybe murder isn’t the nicest way to blow off steam, but Dean’s always thought that being nice is overrated anyway. His latest victim, a pretty guy with startling blue eyes, should be nothing special, just another nameless body on Dean’s list. But then, after Dean kills and buries him, he turns back up at Dean’s house again the next day. What’s a guy to do when they’ve accidentally gotten an immortal witch convinced that they’ve got some kind of profound bond?

... can you blame me for claiming it? 😂 Read it NOW!! 🩸

HEY SO YOU REMEMBER HOW YOU PARTICIPATED IN OR READ FIC OR LOOKED AT ART FROM THE DEANCAS STABFEST (FUNSIZED) IN 2022 AND IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME?

well WE'RE BACK, BABEY

the second year of stabfest, aka 2STAB2FEST, will be just as awesome as the original, with MOAR and NEW. observe:

there is a mini-theme of saint sebastian, tumblr's favorite martyred twink. if your entry evokes stabby sebby imagery, then you can elect to post on his feast day, december 18th. also there's a sticker. of course.

FEMSLASH. look. we love destiel. they're compelling. they're fraught. twelve year slow burn. no one does it like them, etc. but also? we like women. so now all entries must contain EITHER dean and cas OR two or more female characters participating in Stabbing. (or both, if you're an overacheiver.)

do you want to participate, but you have mad heavy decision fatigue? are you listless and confused? do you want to put your fate into the hands of the whimsical universe? well LUCKY FOR YOU stabfest now has a JUST FUCK ME UP option for sign ups and claims! you will be assigned one or more roles at random--writer pitcher, writer catcher, artist pitcher, artist catcher. live más

WE HAVE A DREAMWIDTH AND A DISCORD. the dreamwidth is a little bare, but accessible. the discord will be up in about a week

Hired as a theme park tester for the Halloween season, Dean is left to his own devices in the middle of Frightland Screampark. He isn’t the kind to be afraid— hell, he and his reviews are the ones everyone else should be afraid of. Yet, he pays a visit to the oh so famous haunted house; the place is nothing scary enough to trigger a fight or flight situation but a secret third option appears when Castiel, dressed as Leatherface, rushes at him— flirting.

Behind the bruise makeup, blue-eyes pierce right into his soul like the broken knife-prop that stabs his chest, and Dean doesn’t know how to deal with the pain in his heart and panic throbbing in his blood— he calls Castiel a pretty boy and finds something to actually look forward to by the end of the night...

This Blade for Hire

Taking part in the @deancas-stabfest was a fantastic last minute decision! These mods do an amazing (and hilarious) job, and I've had so much fun collabing with @friendofcarlotta again.

Go and read "This Blade for Hire" HERE!

Dean still thinks that angels are dicks until he doesn't, Cas proudly wears not only flannel, but also his dom brow and a demon blade, and the girls finally get to stab each other too. Enjoy~

DEANCAS STABFEST IS BACK

NOW WITH MORE FEMSLASH

Stabfest is a BANG and a REVERSE BANG at the same time!

Sign ups are still open, as long as you can get a 50% complete rough draft of art OR fic submitted by the deadline, October 30th. Claims will happen on November 5th.

Requirements have been expanded from our inaugural year to now include FEMSLASH in addition to DeanCas as well as a Special Posting Day for SAINT SEBASTIAN themed works.

We have nearly 2 dozen authors signed up for the bang and the reverse bang--so artists, you'll have plenty to choose from or be chosen by!

check out @deancas-stabfest for more info

SIGN UP HERE

FAQ | Schedule

Hello, Stabbers! So the time has come to display all your hard work to the innernets.

You are responsible for two things:

1) Post your work on your scheduled posting date. Not before the date, not after the date; ON your posting date, any time within those 24 hours preceding 11:59PM ET. You will receive an email advising of your posting date on December 10th. Posting runs from Dec 15th to 22nd.

Fic should be posted to AO3 and included in the StabFest 3: Return of the Stab collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stabfest3_RotS. AO3 posts can be drafted ahead of time, but you will need to manually press the "Post Work" button on your posting date.

The AO3 post may embed the art within the body of the text; discuss with your artist to see if they're okay with that. Embedding audio or video files may be more complicated.

Visual art can be posted to whichever site the artist chooses; we recommend Tumblr, as the StabFest has its primary presence on that platform. For the raw file hosting, you might want to use a different service, as Tumblr can be flaky with image URLs. (If that sounds Greek to you, don't sweat it. Post where you're comfy.) Tumblr posts can be scheduled in advance to post at a specific date and time.

All pitch posts must contain a link to the catch post, and vice versa. All posts should indicate the fanwork was created as part of StabFest.

Visual art embedded on AO3 and art hosted on Tumblr and Twitter MUST have Alt ID. This is an accessibility issue for screenreaders and people on crappy wifi. We've all been there. Please see below for resources on how to do this.

Other types of media such as audio and video can also be hosted and displayed on whichever site the stabber prefers. We just need a link that can be included in the promo post and masterlist for people to follow to witness the glory of your creation. You must provide accessibility descriptions of visual and audio elements, such as transcripts of podcasts.

If your work has multiple segments, such as chapters or separate images, you have the option to spread out posting. You must post at least the first segment on your posting day, and have posted all segments by the end of posting at midnight.

2) Complete the Posting Form. You will receive an email the day before your posting date with a link to the airtable form. In the form, you will provide the links to posts of both pitch and catch, and advise Title, Summary, Tags, what stickers you're eligible for, etc. This information will be used to create a promotion post on the official StabFest Tumblr.

This is also where you will provide a promotional banner, if your team has one; this is optional, but it's nice to mix it up from the default. See below for information on banner requirements. You will need to proved a text alt ID for the banner as well.

Submit the posting form AFTER YOUR LINKS ARE LIVE. The mods will post the promo shortly after the form is received. (The posting form is also used to collect information for STABFEST WRAPPED. Answering those questions is optional, but very helpful to the mods. Please.)

Banners

Banners are a fun but optional piece of promo art for your team. If you provide a banner when filling out the posting form, the mods will use that image instead of the default image heading for the official promo post.

Banners must include:

Pitcher name

Catcher name

Title or titles of works

Name of fest OR an official logo. (Or both!)

There are a few options for the fest name, including but not limited to: StabFest3, StabFest 3: Return of the Stab, StabFest Episode III, StabFest2024, DeanCas StabFest, DeanCas* StabFest.

Official logos are transparent .pngs located on Google Drive, here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/178mOu07xk82paymZ2ikkADz8XQnxhP7L?usp=sharing

If you have trouble accessing the folder, shoot us a quick email and we'll send them out to you. (Mass emails with lots of attachments get punted into spam a LOT; otherwise we'd email them from the jump.)

Resources/Guides:

AO3 has a posting tutorial here: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/tutorial-posting-a-work-on-ao3

Information about embedding images in a work here: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/posting-and-editing#embedimage

Information about formatting content with html here: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/formatting-content-on-ao3-with-html

For quick reference, here is the HTML code for embedding an image with an alt id and resizing: <img src="https://preview.ibb.co/dnat2G/image1_2.jpg" width="200" alt="photo of an origami bow" /> Width can also be expressed as a percentage instead of pixels. width="50%" for example.

For guidance on how to write an alt ID, here: https://veroniiiica.com/how-to-write-alt-text-for-amateur-art/ That page also has a link to platform-specific instructions for posting the alt ID.